


Dead and Gone and Passed

by deathwailart



Series: Rhiannon Amell [6]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning to Ostagar, Rhiannon and Alistair talk about Cailan and what they've survived thus far and what they still have to live through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead and Gone and Passed

It's too quiet.  
  
Her memories of Ostagar are of noise; the bustle of soldiers around her, Mabari hounds barking, women of the Chantry reciting their blessings and praying. There was a pageantry to it all with the brightly coloured tents and pavilions, the crackling of fires. It had seemed so huge to her, breathless and exciting. Her new life. The it hadn't seemed a ruin with all the people scurrying to and fro. Now...now it's a tomb. _Daveth and Jory died here_ , she thinks, _I drank Darkspawn blood here_. She had imagined the ruins after waking in Morrigan and Flemeth's hut but she'd had nothing to work with. As time went on she had more to help picture it but when her thoughts turned that way. Growths sickly purple and squelching clinging to old towers and the skeletal remains of walls and columns, for rot with the land black and sick beneath her feet smelling of old meat and for every sort of ghoul imaginable, corpses denied proper burial.  
  
Instead it's still. Quiet. There are ravens croaking to one another who fly away with thunderclap wings, there is the crunch of Ferelden snow beneath her feet, the moaning wind through all the empty spaces. Even though she's the leader, she finds herself keeping pace with Alistair, watching the line of his back, the tension in his broad shoulders as they walk and thinks, _were we ever so young_ and they were. Alistair who made jokes within minutes of meeting her, Alistair who was the leader for those all too brief moments who loved Duncan. She looks back to see lines on Wynne's face that just make her look old and tired rather than a woman who has amassed wisdom. She wonders how she looks, shivering because mage robes do little to keep away the chill of Ferelden when winter bites and sinks its teeth deep. It's wrong that the rough laughter of hurlocks and genlocks is a comfort, the high cries of shrieks, the growling grunts of ogres preferable over the silence and their few moments of chat. Even though there are jokes, they feel strained. It's nothing like their usual banter but she understands how many of them use humour to deflect; it's not just Alistair. She does it, Zevran does it, Wynne does it, Maker even Sten isn't above it now that she knows him better. It changes when they find Cailan, of course it changes. How grand Cailan looked to her when he stood proud and tall in his golden armour like some hero from the tales but that was the problem with Cailan – his head was full of songs and stories of glory at not enough sense and it helped speed his death along. She knows that they're all the same flesh and blood, that beneath their clothes and armour they're all the same at the end of the day but she still has some romantic notions in her after all because a king shouldn't look like this. Not that anyone deserves this fate, to be hung in crude mockery, body defaced and defiled when death should at least grant a person rest but he was a king who greeted her, a Mage girl, someone hated in Ferelden, hated in most of Thedas, kindly with a smile and wished to know of her. Someone from an age gone by. The Wardens were allowed back once but will they ever shake their undeserved title of king slayer now?  
  
It's Alistair face, the way it crumples. He looks so much younger than he is, a boy in armour but she knows he's more sensible than Cailan ever was but he's lost so much and has never had what it is he deserves. Shuttled from pillar to post, never wanted until the Wardens and now that's crumbled all around him. At least she can help him give Cailan a more fitting send-off, all of them working together to get him down and to build a funeral pyre from what scraps they can manage and even Zevran joins them in the prayers despite his misgivings about what they do. Maybe it's different in Antiva, maybe life as a Crow and how much death he's been around that makes him suggest they leave him but from what she saw, he seemed a nice enough man and he was young. She'd hope someone would treat her remains well. He's Alistair's brother and sending them both to Ishal saved their lives in the end.  
  
The walk to the camp is a blur, Alistair with Cailan's armour and whatever else they scrounged including letters that she keeps; they might come in handy and they certainly prove Loghain's paranoia and she has no idea what sort of leverage she's going to need when it comes down to it. Wynne and Zevran talk but there's a buzz in her head that has her moving in a daze and Reaver bounds over to her the second they're back, whining and pushing his face against her. She doesn't know how long she spends with him nuzzling her but it must be a long time – Leliana calls her over for dinner so she sits and chews automatically as she explains to everyone what happened, what they saw. Alistair disappears at some point into his tent after saying he'll take the second shift at watch. Rhiannon wants to go after him but she knows how hard it is to really have some time alone so she hands her bowl over to Sten (they've got a camp rota and everyone bar Shale and Morrigan pitch in though Morrigan appears with meat when the rest of them struggle to hunt anything and she's better at keeping their potion supplies stocked over everyone else) and adds to the supply crates for their allies then goes to spend some time with Morrigan and Shale, sells and buys a few things with Bodahn and does her usual rounds of the camp. Instead of Alistair by the fire as usual he's in his tent, has been ever since dinner was finished; no matter the mood, they're both constantly hungry so a meal never goes unfinished. Eventually there's nothing to keep her occupied so she gathers herself and stands in front of Alistair's tent, trying to compose herself and plan what she wants to say but at the same time, she doesn't want to linger too long in case she hears something he'd rather she didn't. They actually have time tonight the way they didn't after Ostagar. Again, she wonders if it's better or worse that they never found Duncan's body. The thought is pushed aside quickly enough to focus on the task at hand.  
  
"Alistair?" She raises her hand to knock out of habit because when someone wanted privacy, even if they shared a bunk with you there were still some rituals, tapping the bed frame to announce any intentions, tapping the table if they were sitting on their own. Her hand hovers in the air as she huffs out a breath and wraps both arms tight around herself, shivering. "Do you—I wanted to check in?"  
  
"Rhiannon?" His voice sounds muffled and strangely tight.  
  
"Would you like to talk? If you want some space, that's fine, I understand but-"  
  
"No," he replies quickly with the tent flap opening. "Come in, sorry about the-"  
  
"No, no, it's fine," she assures him and scurries inside so she doesn't let the cold in, settling across from him, legs crossed. It almost makes her laugh – this is what children might do, she supposes, making a tent from blankets and furniture. But she never did that. Alistair probably never did that either. None of them did and it's a sad thought, that not a single one of them has every really had a childhood the way so many have. Perhaps Sten has, by Qunari standards, Oghren too – the warrior caste sound respected – but the sort of childhood she has hazy memories of at best, most of them never had that.  
  
"So," Alistair begins, drawing the word out and panic wells because what does she say? Duncan was hard enough and she can't begin to understand Alistair losing a brother and a king so she reaches out, perhaps too quickly if his wide eyes (red eyes, red puffy eyes) are anything to go by, but she's squeezing his hands in her hers and his breath catches.  
  
"I wanted to check in, given what we saw today, it can't have been easy and...I should've done more after Duncan but," the words tumble from her lips the way they always used to when she was nervous, a habit she's training herself out of because she's a leader and leaders (good leaders) don't just ramble on. "I can't know what it's like but if you want to talk? Or just have someone here, well, I'm here." She offers a tight smile, squeezing his hand again and for all they've had their disagreements on certain matters (Redcliffe is always the one she comes back to and her issues with just how scathing he can be about Morrigan – there's no need for him to call her a bitch quite so often, she thinks) they're friends. She's known him longer than anyone else in their party and without Jowan, he's really the oldest friend she has. They survived Ishal together, she was the only one to survive the Joining with him looking down at her and they've made it all this way.  
  
When it's Alistair at her side with his sword and shield, she feels a little less afraid at what they're about to get into. And she appreciates the humour, the little remarks that help her calm down and remember that she's allowed to have feelings instead of trying to make herself into whatever every great leader in all her stories or history books was. She cares about the people she's with because they don't have to be here – all of them are free to leave and Andraste's blood she wouldn't blame them for doing so but they're here, slogging through all weathers, up mountains, down the Deep Roads, through forests, across the country, in ruins and villages and everywhere else, dirty, bloody, exhausted and attacked by all manner of person and creature.  
  
But it was just her and Alistair at first. And they're the only two left to finish it.  
  
"It's not like we were close, I mean, we knew who the other one was but he was more my king than my brother." Alistair finally says quietly when they've been sitting across from one another in the cramped tent, his pack, sword and shield stashed in a corner. She doesn't ask if he ever wishes otherwise, that he had a brother he could play soldiers with or whatever it is little not-mage children do. "And I know Duncan didn't agree with what he was doing - did he...?" He trails off, raising an eyebrow at her.  
  
"Not in so many words," she replies, "but we did speak of it just after Cailan greeted us. Someone else," oh Maker she shouldn't bring up Loghain after all he's done but his words are there in her mind and once upon a time Loghain _was_ a great man, was the Hero of River Dane with the son of the rebel queen, "told me to remember that Cailan was a very young man."  
  
"He was a good man. The people loved him – I suppose in a way it's maybe sort of flattering? That everyone's so outraged that we'd kill the king but it just...it makes it hurt more. Because he was my king, I would never do that to my king." There's a torn look on his face, so open and raw that when he gives her a tug, she moves and rearranges herself so they're side by side, his head on her shoulder. It's a bit awkward but it reminds her of when it was just her and Jowan although Jowan's shoulders were never so broad and he didn't smell of metal. Zevran is the one who tells her to lay her weary head on his shoulder more often than not, that she should rest and Alistair doesn't have that and he's as much a Warden as she is. One of her hands rubs circles on his back. "He was my brother," he says at last, so softly that she almost thinks she's hearing things.  
  
"I know. He kept you safe sending us up to Ishal, him and Duncan both and doing what we're doing now? We're doing that for Cailan too. He rallied an army." He might not have thought it was a real Blight but they know better now so there's no need to bring something like that up. "We'll make Loghain pay for what he did to him and to all of Cailan's men and women, we'll make every Darkspawn we meet pay for what they've done to everyone and then we'll make sure the Archdemon pays too."  
  
She doesn't know what she expects, for Alistair to grimly agree or to recover some of his humour. She doesn't really care much if she's honest, she just wants to remind him that they're equally committed to this and that everyone is going to pay for the wounds inflicted upon Ferelden and her people.  
  
"You really think we can do this."  
  
"I _know_ we can do this."  
  
"Just us, you and me – well and everyone here but you know what I mean – between disaster and victory."  
  
"I think things have been worse before. I think."  
  
Alistair tilts his head to look at her, his smile uncertain. "You think? Well that's encouraging."  
  
"Hey, I've managed to get us through things relatively unscathed."  
  
"Oh yes, werewolves, golems and crazy dwarves oh and then there were the attacking trees-"  
  
" _Relatively_ unscathed." It's said with as much dignity as she can muster, prim and proper. She cracks up about five seconds after the words leave her mouth; when Alistair laughs too she can feel his shoulders shaking and when he wipes his face she knows it's not just from the laughter or grief, it's that strange state they all get into, the no-man's land of clinging to what you'd do before and what you have to do now so you can carry on.  
  
"I'm glad it's you, you know, here. Doing this. With me."  
  
"I'm glad too."  
  
He sighs and leans against her shoulder until Oghren pokes his head in to get Alistair for watch. She joins him without a word and listens to all the stories of his childhood and the Wardens that start to flow now that everyone else is asleep and silent even as his voice cracks and the tears start to flow. In the morning when they're getting ready to head off he sidles up, bumps her with one hip and almost knocks her over because he's tall and strong and wearing heavy armour and she's small and slight and in ridiculous robes.  
  
He's red, stumbling over apologies even as she waves the words away before he sobers. "Thank you. For last night, you're a really good friend."  
  
"Remember that when I'm dragging you through caves full of Darkspawn." It's all false sweetness but utter sincerity.  
  
"I take it back, you're a terrible person." But he's smiling, looking like Alistair again and when they set off properly, his steps don't seem as heavy as they did last night.


End file.
